The route which had been chosen for the long-awaited railway was via the
Kicking Horse Pass and through Kamloops along the Thompson River to the
Fraser -- through the heart of the bunchgrass ranges. The first stretch
of the railway to be contracted was only from Yale to Savona. However,
the contractor, Andrew Onderdonk, had strong financial backing from an
American syndicate and a reputation for pushing ahead with great engineering
projects.

The ranchers who had hung on grimly through the difficult years of
the 1870s had good reason to be optimistic. The CPR expected to employ
5000 men during the summer of 1881 and, in June, invited tenders for
a large and steady supply of fresh beef for the work crews. Their requirements
were so great that only the largest ranches could hope to fulfill their
needs. Not surprisingly, Thaddeus Harper of the Gang Ranch won the contract.
He sold off the surplus cattle that had accumulated on his ranges through
the 1870s and purchased all the cattle he could from Cariboo and Chilcotin
ranchers. Prices for cattle began to move upward to over $20 a head,
and the market for 1882 looked even more promising as railway construction
reached its peak.

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CPR construction at Yale. D-07828 – Courtesy of Royal
British Columbia Museum

By 1917, two trans-continental railway lines and a provincial railway
had been completed. In addition, the invention and spread of motorized
transportation influenced the construction and improvement of roads
throughout the Cariboo and Chilcotin areas. At the beginning of the
railway era, settlement was still largely oriented to the major routes
of travel, but towards the turn of the century, settlers pushed beyond
the established routes and occupied the more remote areas where smaller
grasslands and meadows were used for grazing cattle.

Angora “Wooly” Chaps (1900s)

A type of chaps made with the fur still on the hide became very popular
in the harsh northern climates like British Columbia. They offered warmth
as well as protection when a rider bumped against a fence or tree. By
the turn of the century, cowboys in British Columbia almost universally
wore “woollies,” most often made from long, thick-haired Angora goatskins.

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